


Like Hell

by LadyAmina



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Grimmauld Place, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sirius PoV, Transformation, Werewolf Transformation, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 00:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7144037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAmina/pseuds/LadyAmina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus is completely grateful for the existence of the Wolfsbane Potion.  Sirius disagrees.  </p><p>A brief glimpse into what a transformation is like.  Somewhere in OoTP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Hell

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this months ago and never posted it anywhere, so better late than never

“Sundown is in six hours, make sure he takes it before that happens.” Snape drawled, standing in the foyer of Grimmauld place, unmoving.

“Yes, thank you,” Sirius’s voice was the antithesis of thankful, “You’ve dropped off the potion, why are you still here?”

Snape’s lips curled, “This is Order Headquarters, Black.  I think I have  _ just  _ as much right to be here as you do.” 

It was a carefully calculated blow, Sirius was keenly aware.  He couldn’t contradict Snape without claiming the house as his own, which the bastard knew he never would.  “Do you have Order business, then?” He managed through gritted teeth.

“None that involves sitting around this place, I’m afraid,” Snape sneered again and turned to take his leave  _ finally _ .  “Go feed your beast.”

_ You son of a bitch, he has never been anything but good and human to you.  Remus has always been an advocate for your useless existence.  And for what?  You got him fired, you  _ outed _ him after two decades for  _ what _?  Keep talking about me, talk about my family, tell me I’m stationary and worthless but leave Remus the fuck out of it. _

Sirius wanted to yell and curse, but before he could, Snape was out the door and Merlin knows where, leaving Sirius fuming in the hall with a mug full of Wolfsbane Potion clenched so tightly in his fingers it was a wonder the handle hadn’t snapped.

He composed himself before trekking up the stairs to his room.  It wouldn’t do for Remus to see him shaking with rage.  He would worry.  

He pushed the door open slowly to see Remus lying on his back on their bed, completely still.  Someone else might have thought he was asleep.  Sirius did not.  He was much too rigid - Remus slept in a mess of limbs and almost never on his back - and his eyes were clenched shut.  His bones were preparing for the transformation, Sirius knew.

Once upon a time, Sirius had witnessed this bit of awfulness in a much different manner.  He could still recall Remus crying.  Great, gasping sobs as his bones prepared to break and rearrange.  He remembered his face contorting with agony and the dripping sweat he’d tried to mop lightly before James stopped him ( _ he needs to sweat or he’ll overheat.  Let him be). _  He remembered the screaming. 

In many ways, the hours leading up to a transformation were the worst.  At least when the wolf was present, Remus wasn’t in pain anymore.  

But not wanting Remus to be in pain was entirely selfish on Sirius’s part.  He looked down at the mug in his hands, steaming though it was not hot.  He wanted to smash it.  To tell Remus he’d just have to let the wolf come out this month.  Because the horror of Remus actually existing in the wolf’s body was too much.  He couldn’t do that.

Whatever trauma Remus had to suffer under the potion, he was convinced that it was worth it.  That letting the wolf take over was the ultimate shame.  And Sirius was, of course, grateful that it meant Remus wasn’t biting and scratching his own beautiful skin, but Remus was haunted, now.  Scarred in a different way.  And Sirius was afraid that finding the line between Remus and The Wolf was becoming blurred.  

Not that Remus would ever let the wolf overcome him.  No.  His fear was much worse.  He was terrified that Remus was starting to think of himself as a werewolf.  Like that was who he was as a person.  It was always something that happened  _ to  _ him, not  _ with  _ him.  It was his  _ problem _ , it did not define him.  Except that it did.

Remus didn’t make a sound through these hours anymore.  Not like when they were kids.  It had been over two hundred moons since Sirius had been scolded for trying to blot Remus’s sweaty forehead.  Remus had had a lot of practice.

Now he sat completely still, muscles doing the screaming for him.  Sirius sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to get too close.  Remus tended to waver between needing physical comfort and complete tactile loathing during this and it was impossible to tell how he was feeling until he gave a signal.

“Love, I have your potion,” He announced.  He knew Remus must know he was there, with his over-heightened senses, but he had yet to acknowledge his presence.

His response was a choked whimper.

Okay, that probably meant no touching.  He could talk instead.  Remus always claimed that was a comfort.  “Snivellus brought it.  Mind you don’t be too thankful later, he was a right prick about it.” He pulled his legs up onto the bed and turned his body to face Remus.  

Remus made a face like he would have laughed if he could have.  Sirius checked the time on the clock on the bedside table.  Remus should be coming about any minute now.  

Sure enough, not five minutes of Sirius babbling on about nothing in particular later, Remus’s face relaxed and his muscles sagged into the mattress.  He looked exhausted.  He looked older.  Sirius wished this were actually the worst part of the process.  The bodily prep alone was more than enough anguish, wasn’t it?  

Remus reached out a shaking hand for the potion, which Sirius loathfully helped him drink. 

“Thank you,” He panted, wiping his chin with the sleeve of his cardigan.  

“Please don’t thank me,” Sirius asked earnestly.  Being thanked for  _ this  _ was awful.  Sickly he longed for the days when helping Remus through a moon meant sparring with the wolf as Padfoot.  Racing him through the trees, playing the hunting game…

His Moony lay broken on the bed beside him but he managed half of a smile anyway.

“Would you?” Remus lifted an arm and Sirius didn’t need to be asked twice.  He scooted right under it and wrapped himself very carefully around Remus’s right side.

He pressed very light kisses to Remus’s chest.  “Sure you don’t want Padfoot?”

He felt Remus shake his head.  “No, just you right now.  Need to feel you.” 

That was all the explanation Sirius required.

For hours they lay together - sometimes Sirius would sit up so that Remus could pass through one of his spells of discomfort, but Remus would always pull him back for a kiss and cuddles not terribly long after.  

It was the six hours  _ just  _ before The Moon when Remus could have been productive.  He could hold conversations and he could move just fine and he was ‘almost a person’, as he put it.  But Sirius insisted he stay in bed anyway.  Soon and with little warning, pain would shoot through Remus worse than a culmination of the previous bone and muscle aches.  Being in a resting position when this hit was easier.

Their little bit of serenity couldn’t last.  The sun grew lower in the sky as they talked and touched.  

“Go, Sirius,” Remus instructed all too soon.

“I know what you’re going to say, but listen-”

“No.”

“Remus, you’re perfectly safe, now-”

“No.”

“I could change, I could be Pad-”

“Sirius, no.”

“I don’t have to be so close to you, I’ll stay on the other side of the-”

“ _ NO. _ ” 

Remus’s word was final and Sirius tapered into silence.  They’d argued this a thousand times in the last six months.  Usually it was a longer, more intense argument, but Sirius knew he wouldn’t win and he couldn’t bring himself to upset Remus more in this state.

So instead he stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind him.  A moment later he heard it lock from the inside and tried to pretend it didn’t feel like being punched in the gut.

The screaming started a quarter of an hour later.  Sirius jumped at first.  His back was pressed to the door and it had been so quiet he’d nearly started drifting off.  It was loud and sharp and it ripped through him like a knife.  He shook the silver door handle though he was well aware that it wouldn’t budge.  Remus was screaming, Remus was hurting and Sirius couldn’t get to him.  And it wouldn’t end soon.  The noise would, for sure.  But he couldn’t even be comforted by the notion that soon Remus would slip away and not have to exist in this anymore.  Because he would.  Remus would be there, fully conscious for the next ten hours.

It carried through the whole house.  Moments after the first shredding scream, the portrait of Walburga joined in.

“FILTHY HALF-BREED ABOMINATION!” She hollered and she was talking about his Remus.  The beautiful suffering man on the other side of the door that Sirius loved so  _ so _ much.  And it was all well and good for the members of the order to just ignore her words, to write her off as the bitch she was and block out the things she was saying, but it was different for Sirius.  That was the voice of his  _ mother _ .  And no one in the world had put more effort into tuning out her words of hate, but it was his  _ mother _ .  It wasn’t so simple.

He had to close the curtain.  It felt  _ wrong _ to leave Remus’s side, whether the other man knew he was there or not, but he needed to make her stop.

He started down the stairs to shut her the hell up, but then Remus screamed again and the air was full of noise; of pain.  Too much - it was too overwhelming.  He fell to his knees on the landing.  A landing he’d spent too many nights sitting on listening to the same shrill voice as was echoing through the musty halls at that moment. 

Sirius was stuck in this house he’d hated all his life, caught halfway between the screams of his Remus and the shrieking of his mother.  Azkaban had never been this sharply torturous.  The screams were the same, but at least there they were echos.  Here they were physical and perfectly real.  

Sirius thought for sure this must be hell.

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly I'm just sorry.


End file.
